In the beginning years of this blog, I published a series of articles called “Meditations on Democracy and Dictatorship” which are still regularly read today, and have had some influence. They still elicit inquiries from remote corners of the globe. They are now buried in the back pages of the blog, so I’m moving them up the chronological counter so they can have another round of visibility, especially (I hope) with younger readers. I am re-posting them in their original sequence over part of 2018. Some references in these “meditations” will date them to 2007–2008, when they were written. But I will leave them un-retouched, though I may occasionally append some retrospective notes. Mostly, they deal with abstract issues that do not need updating.
The argument behind this series of meditations is that aristocratic elites, whether they are dressed up in military uniforms, business suits, or the regalia of royalty, are identical in purpose and function. Differences between them are trivial and cosmetic, not structural. The term “dictatorship” applies equally to all places where an unelected gang of hoodlums rules over people and territory, whatever their supposed ideology or whatever style they chose to prance around in. I further contend that they are neither morally legitimate, nor “government” in the sense that democratically elected administrations are. Dictators are merely criminals, no different from the criminals that rob convenience stores or attack women in darkened car parks. The only difference is the amount of money they steal and the number of people they murder or maim.
Next, I have argued that rule by aristocracies is a constant danger to human society in any time and any place, independent of a society’s level of wealth, or available technology. I argue that there are no necessary or predestined “stages” in the organization of human society. Morally good and beneficial democratic social arrangements can be made at any time and in any place, by any group of people, large or small. Language, ethnicity, location, and degree of wealth are not structurally relevant to democratic practice, and democratic practice does not originate with, or “belong to” any particular cultural group. Similarly, dictatorship can occur in any human group. Immoral, diseased societies can be made at any time, in any place, by any group of people, large or small. Both possibilities always co-exist.
I then proposed that the actions of aristocratic elites are merely the extension of techniques employed by psychological bullies and con-artists on the personal scale of human interaction. In other words, bullies, frauds, swindlers and manipulators operate as a pathological minority in all human groups. The methods and motives of dictators and ruling aristocracies, operating on the level of nations, are not different, in any meaningful way, from those practiced on a small scale among petty criminals. In all cases, the rulers are completely aware of what they are doing. They are not the products of collective or “historical” processes. They are not arriving at dominance unconsciously. None of the “ideologies” or “philosophies” attributed to such pathological personalities actually have any significance. They are merely plausible-sounding “scripts” that ruling elites profess to believe, in order to confuse and manipulate their victims. Ruling elites do not believe in any such systems or philosophies. They are merely tools for achieving their goals, and can be contradicted or discarded at any time. The basic manipulative techniques of dictatorship are simple: the manufactured image of charisma, the lie, the carrot, and the stick.
Finally, I have explained what every experienced con-artist or swindler knows, that the key to exercising control over people, and getting what you want from them, is securing their belief and collaboration. It is our collaboration ― in the form of accepting their claims to be “sovereign governments”, or “leaders”, and according them formal and ceremonial legitimacy — that is at the heart of their power. Because we accept their claims to power and authority, their authority becomes real. Psychological collaboration gives them power, and economic collaboration makes their crimes profitable.
Imagine that if every time a corner store was robbed, the robber could simply walk across the street and deposit the stolen money in a bank, and then the neighbourhood business association agreed that now the robber was the legitimate “owner” of the store, and should be automatically enrolled in the association as a respectable local businessman. Suppose that the police agreed that anyone who successfully robbed a store should not be pursued and prosecuted, because they were now a “sovereign body”. It is self-evident that such a policy would lead to unlimited armed robbery and violence. We would think people insane if they held such values. Yet that is exactly what we have chosen to do with tyrannies and dictatorships.
Anyone who manages to murder, rape, and pillage on a large enough scale is automatically recognized as a “sovereign government”, accorded a seat in the United Nations, and allowed to deposit the money they steal into Swiss bank accounts. We then allow them to spend that money on Fifth Avenue, the Ginza, or the Champs-Élysées. Their legitimacy is recognized by all, their security is assured. Arms dealers and governments line up to supply them with the weapons which keep them in power. Only the occasional one is deposed if he steps on too many toes, or miscalculates a bid for hegemony. The majority can count on acceptance and security.
Yet people seem to see nothing wrong with this arrangement, and grow very hostile if one even suggests altering it. Even the direct victims of dictatorship will often find themselves unable to renounce their dictators, and will still see them as legitimate. The relationship of people to dictatorships strongly resembles that of delusional cult members or of abused wives who refuse to leave a violent husband. In both cases, psychologically dominant con-artists have skillfully manipulated the insecurity and credulity of their victims in order to separate them from the world of reason, and isolate them in a world of delusion, unreasoning faith and loyalty. The abusing husband alternates violent beatings with tears and assertions of devotion, and plays on the desperate need of his victim to be loved, even if the “love” consists of broken bones and humiliation. The abused wife refuses to have him charged, and goes back for more abuse. The religious cult leader skillfully plays on the emotional needs of his followers to manipulate them into making him rich, or satisfying his sexual cravings. Even after leaving the cult, former members still see the cult leader as a charismatic father figure, and yearn to find a substitute. In both cases, it is the willing co-operation of the victims, and the collateral co-operation of third parties, that makes the crime possible. The abusing husband is accepted by other husbands as “one of the boys”. The cult leader is accepted as a respectable religious leader in the community.
So it is with dictatorship. Dictators get power because they are able to successfully acquire loyal followers who will carry out their will. Than Shwe doesn’t have to personally burn dissidents alive… he has soldiers who will do that for him, and officers who will organize it, and clerks who will enter the details into ledgers, and businessmen who will sell him the incinerators and accountants who will add up the costs. Fidel Castro did not have to personally round up and torture the homosexuals and poets that he hated. He had loyal henchmen who would do it for him. And he had investors who would provide the capital to finance his operations. Dictators rely on the co-operation of those outside of their territory, who, by custom and convention, agree that they “own” the people and territory that they control.
That insidious custom and convention proclaims that they are immune to punishment, and immune to the ordinary moral censure that human beings are supposed to impose on wrongdoers. Than Shwe or Fidel Castro can appear in a public place, and they will be treated as respectable people. They are celebrities, to be fawned on and pampered. Diplomats will meet them at cocktail parties, shake their hands, and tell jokes to them. Presidents and Prime Ministers of democracies will invite them to their homes for dinner, or play golf with them. All morality is suspended. Dictators inhabit a lucrative and comfortable world, where theft, murder, torture, and every other abominable crime are not only tolerated, but rewarded. The rich and powerful agree, universally, that no rulers should ever be punished for what they do to their people, but they may potentially be disciplined for transgressions against more powerful brethren.
So what should decent human beings do, in this bizarre, and obviously sick situation?
The first, and most important step in opposing dictatorship is for human beings to demand that morality be recognized and obeyed. We must begin with a moral self-education and self-discipline that trains us to treat dictatorship as it should rightfully be treated. We must personally, each of us, refuse to accept the lie of dictatorial legitimacy, in any context. Our own behaviour must become morally exact and consistent. And we must demand that our elected officials obey that morality.
We must never allow the concept of “legitimate” dictatorship to be inserted into political analysis or discourse, without exposing and defying it. We must never allow any politician to engage in any action that legitimizes dictatorship, without denouncing and opposing it. We must use whatever social and democratic institutions we have at our disposal to achieve the abolition of dictatorship.
We should denounce and shun anyone who socializes with a dictator, treats a dictator as legitimate, or does any kind of business with a dictator. That shunning should be absolute, draconian, and irrevocable. The attitude of a decent human being should be: “Deal with a dictator, and I will not only refuse to vote for you, or buy your products, but I will not allow you in my home, nor will I shake your hand. Breaking bread with you is unimaginable. I will not allow you anywhere near my children. No one should ever speak to you, or even look at you.” One act of collaboration with any dictator, of any kind, no matter how insignificant, should automatically sever a human being from any connection to the human race.
On the political level, we should regard any collaborating with a dictatorship as an act of high treason. This should be the foundation stone of our moral values in foreign relations. What we should be working for politically, is a set of constitutional amendments that mandate impeachment and treason charges for any politician who is caught in the same room with a dictator.
That should be the attitude of any morally responsible human being, and that attitude should be communicated loudly, and repeatedly, to anyone in business or government. Contrary to what we usually imagine, politicians do respond to being “trained” in this manner. There is nothing inevitable or necessary about their collaboration with evil. It only occurs because we allow it, because we let them get away with it unpunished. We should be punishing them for it, punishing them hard, punishing them as angrily and vigorously as we can. Punishing them on election day, punishing them in the opinion polls, and punishing them by turning our backs on them, spitting on them, anything that gets the message across. We are not in a position to directly punish the dictators, at this stage, but we are in a position to punish our own officials when they collaborate with them. That should be the policy and practice of any progressive person or institution in our society. It should be the moral behaviour that is taught in schools. It should be the moral standard acknowledged and practiced by all people in the arts, in science, in education, and in scholarship. A sense of moral outrage should become the norm in this regard.
This moral censure should not be confined to politicians alone. If a movie star or rock star publicly hangs out with a dictator, or supports a non-democratic regime, then the public should turn against them, and his or her career should quite rightly face ruin. If a businessman buys or sells from a dictator, we should deploy whatever public social sanctions we can manage. Boycotts and protests are effective in such cases, far more than people generally imagine. Even the loss of five percent of a market can destroy the careers of hot shot CEOs and cause turnovers in boardrooms. Civilized people should exercise those sanctions at every opportunity.
It is precisely this kind of moral force that drove the anti-slavery movement in the 19th century, and that, in the United States, put an end to racial segregation in the 1960s. It was not politicians or the wealthy who initiated these reforms. It was ordinary people, at first only a very few, who made these things happen. In the beginning, only a handful of committed individuals acted on their consciences. Their consistency and courage made the lines of choice clear. Slowly, others were either inspired by their example, or shamed by it. Gradually, a new moral norm was established, and society mutated to the point where transgressors could not show their face in respectable company. Political changes followed. But the political changes would never have been possible without the underlying force of individual human beings exercising moral choice and conviction.
That is what we should be doing when confronted with the fact of dictatorship. Dictatorship is responsible for the largest portion of suffering and injustice in the world. Poverty, disease, famine, social injustices of all kind are mostly the bi-products of dictatorship. If anyone aspires to oppose social injustice, or wishes to do something concrete about poverty and disease, it should be their first priority to destroy dictatorship. To accomplish this, it is necessary to embrace, proclaim, practice and promote the moral standards necessary to oppose dictatorship effectively. These values must be consistent and practiced without capricious exceptions. It is not permissible to protest one dictator and coddle another. No strategic alignment with any dictator is morally permissible, in pursuit of any objective. That goes for both government policies and the actions of individuals. A human being ― any human being ― can only be recognized as honest and moral if he or she opposes all dictatorship, everywhere, without exception.
If politicians begin to feel the heat of this moral force, if they are called to account by journalists when they violate fundamental morality, and if they find themselves shunned and denounced at every turn, they will eventually be forced to change their behaviour. The process may be a slow and difficult one, but what right thing has ever been easy to do?
In the middle of the 18th Century, a young man in New Jersey, John Woolman, came to the conclusion, at the age of 23, that slavery was immoral, and that no decent person should profit from it. It took him many years to convince a handful of people of this position, but by the end of his life, it had been adopted by the majority of Quakers in America and many in England. From the example of the Quakers, this viewpoint gradually won over intelligent and morally sensitive people, and by the end of the 18th century had a widespread influence. Vermont became the first government to abolish slavery, followed soon after by Upper Canada, and then a number of New England States. A court in Lower Canada in 1803 ruled slavery incompatible with the fundamental principles of law. Opposition to slavery spread to Scandinavia, then to many other places in Continental Europe. In 1834, chattel slavery was abolished, at least legally, throughout the British Empire. The United States had to undergo a tumultuous and agonizing war before the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. But this titanic struggle against evil could not have succeeded if people like John Woolman, a simple taylor and notary, had not proclaimed and committed themselves to a clear-cut moral position. It was their moral force that ultimately made political changes happen.
Dictatorship is merely a modern version of the slave trade, practiced by people who control territory and claim to be “governments”. The ultimate elimination of dictatorship calls for the deployment of the same type of moral force as that earlier movement.
There are basically two sets of strategies necessary. Those who presently live under dictatorship need to develop one set of strategies. Those who live outside of dictatorship, who can freely express their opinions and influence elected governments, should be pursuing another set. The two sets of strategies are related, and should be co-ordinated. But in this essay, I’m primarily concerned with the second set.
The strategy of deploying moral force should serve a simple purpose: to get laws passed and policies enacted that make dictators suffer, cut them off from money, humiliate them, isolate them, and eventually destroy them. First, our aim should be to get our governments to renounce all ties and alliances with dictators. Then it should be to repudiate recognition of dictatorships as legitimate governments. Then we should get laws passed making it chargeable treason for any politician to consort with, entertain, or communicate personally with a dictator. We should be demanding that the embassies and consulates of dictatorships be closed, and that their diplomats be expelled. Then we should demand the expulsion of all dictatorships from international bodies, or that democracies withdraw from international bodies that permit dictatorship to participate. Then, we should push for the enactment of laws making it a criminal offense to engage in any economic exchange with a dictator, or his henchmen. These should be followed by laws dissolving corporations that do business with dictators. All these demands should be made, one after the other, with unending pressure from the bottom up. No person should be regarded as fit to hold any position of respectability or honour unless they make these demands.
Particular attention should be paid to the behaviour of financial institutions. We should demand laws that severely punish any bank that provides financial services for a dictator, or his henchmen, even by indirect procedures (i.e., numbered or secret accounts, money-laundering, dummy corporations). These laws should hold banks responsible for transgressions even if they claim to have done them unknowingly. Access to international banking services is the life-blood that makes dictatorship function profitably. It is the heart of the matter. If banks outside our own countries do not conform to these rules, then they should not be allowed to transact business in our countries. Our goal should be the seizure of all assets held by dictators or their henchmen ― so that they can be held in trust for the people who rightfully own them, the victims of the dictators in their own countries.
Ultimately, our aim should be to issue warrants for the arrest of all dictators and their representatives, henchmen, and collaborators. These warrants should mandate the arrest and trial of any of these people if they set foot on the soil of a democracy. The only final result that is morally acceptable to decent human beings would be a “Nuremberg” trial of all the dictators on Earth.
These are all things that can be done through the democratic process, and through the law. And they are all things which can be done without making war, which invariably harms the victims of dictatorship more than it harms the dictators themselves. We must always remember the “ace in the hole” that every dictator counts on: they hold their own people hostage, and many of those hostages are children. We should never be in the business of bombing children to “save” them from dictatorship. We should be focused on eliminating the dictators. Strangling their blood-flow of money, and making sure that they cannot ever show their faces in the civilized world are far more effective than any military swaggering.
But to do this requires a long, slow build-up of social pressure from principled individuals. Those individuals must be sure of themselves, and be willing to stand up to the ridicule and counter-pressures they will be subjected to. They will be sneered at by intellectuals, dismissed as crazies by politicians, and undermined by those who gain financially from collaboration with dictatorship. They will feel the lure of conformity. They will grow weary of explaining the same obvious facts over and over again, and they will become listless and disconsolate when progress fails to materialize quickly. It will be very, very difficult to pass the laws we need. All politicians will hate them. All rich people will hate them. All corporate interests will hate them. Many intellectuals will hate them with rabid fanaticism. All these forces will fight tooth and nail to block them.
The strategy of deploying moral force obviously requires patience, since no results can be expected to come quickly, and it requires sacrifice. It is convenient, and comfortable to turn a blind eye to dictatorship. It is convenient to buy the cheap products that dictatorships supply, with their market advantage of slave labour and environmental rape. It is convenient to avoid confrontation with our own élites and big shots. It is tempting to swallow the illusion, peddled by all our politicians, that dictators can be “reformed” by “engagement”, bribes, or politeness. But morality is not a convenient or a comfortable thing. It requires that you stand up straight as a man or a woman, and follow a principle, rather than kissing bums and collecting the cube of sugar. Morality holds no appeal for most intellectuals, who prefer the cleverness of realpolitik and opportunistic moral obfuscation. Morality holds no appeal for “radicals” and other poseurs attracted to the bombast of “revolution”. But morality is what is truly radical, truly revolutionary, and, in the long run, truly effective. In the long run, I think that moral truth, and moral force will win.
Why do I think so? Because the world is growing up. Dictatorship is the product of ignorance, cowardice, and superstition. It will be a horribly painful process, but we will outgrow it.
